We really weren't sure what we were going to do yesterday morning when we woke up, but after checking out what events were available near us (nothing special) we decided to just hang out and have a barbecue - so we invited Martin and Melina to come over with their little boy Marcos and we set up the back yard into barbecue mode. We have all the backyard stuff in the garage when we're not using them so they don't kill the grass - which is already getting pretty dry because I keep messing with the watering schedule, it's like a desert or a swamp back there. I can't seem to get it right.

Anyways, those guys came over and after we cooked up a few burgers, we set up the wading pool and the plastic castle with the slide and though separate they're pretty fun for the kids, we soon figured out that together it was like having the Best Little Water Park Ever in our back yard. You can see in the pic above Marcos running around to take another slide while Alex zipped down. What fun! ;-)

Then, while the squirts were occupied and Ana and Melina were in full conversation, Martin and I slipped indoors to play Winning 11 v8 on Diego's XBox for like two hours. Yeah! Diego's coming back next week(!) - it's going to be sad to see the XBox go, actually... I may have to pick up a GameCube to replace it. :-).

We then took off for Martin and Melina's place as the fireworks at Shoreline Ampitheatre are right near their house in Mountain View, but it turns out we missed the start of the fireworks while eating pizza. I'm sort of amazed that more towns don't have fireworks displays down here! I figured every little municipality would have a litte festival and a fireworks display, but the only one like that is in San Jose. The other two displays that were near us were "commercial" and combined with concerts. They were "free" if you hung outside the concert and watched, but that's not my idea of a Fourth display - I like the idea of scoping out a piece of baseball field in mid-evening with a picnic blanket and waiting while it gets dark for the official town display. I guess this is from my experience living in Gorham, New Hampshire where they do this sort of thing right (and always combined with a carnival as well. :-) ).

Anyways, very nice and relaxing Fourth. Alex was so tired when he got home last night he didn't fight at all to go to bed. That's how you can tell it was a good day. :-)